American and Brazilian astronomers have estimated the lifetime of the solar protoplanetary disk - a cloud of gas and dust around the star, from which the system of the same name later arose. The corresponding study was published in the journal Science, briefly reported by EurekAlert!
It took about three to four million years for the largest gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, to form from the protoplanetary disk and take their present position in the solar system.
The authors came to their conclusions after analyzing four ancient meteorites (angrites), formed 4.653 billion years ago. Samples were found in the territories of modern Argentina and Brazil, as well as Antarctica and the Sahara.
The authors found residual magnetization in meteorites, which could be created in an environment with a magnetic field induction of 0.6 microtesla. It should have been approximately the same when the solar system was three to four million years old.
Previous estimates of the lifetime of the solar protoplanetary disk ranged from one to ten million years.
